After The Ending (Blog #14)

After reading "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margret Atwood, rereading it, and reviewing it. I noticed the ending of the book was very open and left to the reader to make their own predictions about what happened to the characters that we've learned about. With the Historical Notes we know that "The Handmaid's Tale" was a story that was based off recorded tapes of Offred speaking about what happened. With that in mind we can assume that and the end of her story when she was being carried out she either escaped then, or she escaped later and got access to a US Military box, recording devices, and blank tapes to record on. I believe that when she escaped she either found or was taken to the Quakers, who are the rebel group very briefly mentioned in the book, and they gave her the materials need to record her thoughts and her story about her time in Gilead. One thing that I think happen is that she never saw her daughter, Luke, or even Nick ever again unless she was there during the fall of Gilead and it's ways. I say this because how could they see each other again. Offred's daughter we know is alive due to a photo provided by Serena Joy, but she's probably have the Gilead ideals and beliefs drilled into her and she may not even know she has a mother to begin with. The reason I think Luke isn't alive is mainly from what isn't mentioned in the book, Offred won't go looking for him because two out of her three ideas of what happened to Luke he's dead. Finally Nick had no need to go and be with her, he treated this whole thing as a job, he has no reason to leave his job and risk death for someone he doesn't care for. That's what I believe happened at the end of the Handmaid's Tale.